Finale: Contre le montre

Nicki and I have spent the past few weeks training our bodies and prepping our bikes for the final Louisiana and Mississippi Bike Racing Association event of the year: The LAMBRA Individual Time Trial Championships.

The ITT, or race against the clock, starts at 8 a.m. Sunday in Rocky Springs, Miss., on the Natchez Trace.

It's a big deal for both of us because it's most likely our last competition of the year in any discipline, and we want to go out with some momentum toward next season. We raced this course in March during a different event. We'd both like to improve upon those results, even though Nicki had a pretty good day. She has a shot to finish in the money on Sunday.

We've done some TT-specific workouts, like single-leg work -- where you alternate which leg is driving the bike, focusing on pulling up on the pedal as well as pushing down -- and tempo rides. Our hearts, legs and lungs should be in better condition.

To overcome the obstacles we face, unfortunately, we will have to depend on circumstances largely out of our control. First of all, the wind on the Trace can be brutal. On an out-and-back course, the wind is certainly your friend in one direction and your worst enemy in the other. I blew up way early in March because the wind was blowing south to north. I think I averaged around 15 mph on the way out and better than 25 mph on the way back. I felt pretty terrible. The weather for Sunday calls for very cool temps, and a 7 mph wind out of the WNW. That's a strong wind on the bike, and it looks like it might be a cross wind ... the worst possible scenario. It appears the wind will fight us the entire race.

I'll be fighting with a weapon I didn't have seven months ago: A better bike. The first time on this course, I rode my 1999 steel-frame LeMond Vegas City, a bike designed more for comfort riding than racing. Sunday, I'll be on an aluminum-frame Cervelo Soloist-Team, a bike engineered for racing, with angles and tubing better designed for time trials, and weighing several pounds less than the older LeMond. It's a bike lent to me by our team, Absolute Racing.

Nicki will be on her Trek 1000, the bike on which she rode to second in March. We're in the process of working lots of overtime and saving up to buy her a Soloist. With out team membership, because it's a non-profit organization, we can buy the bike at cost, saving hundreds of dollars. So if you think she's fast now ...

If y'all are in town on Saturday, come out and watch. Directions from Jackson: Take I-20 West to the Natchez Trace. Go South about 35 miles and park at the Rocky Springs pull-out area. Bring breakfast, some coffee, a blanket and a loud voice.